“Huh!” It was a little girl that came out of the body bag. She looked so frail and frightened as if she had no idea what was going on or why she was even there. I too wanted to know why Sharp Stepper brought her into the warehouse.

“Who is that? Why have you brought a little girl to threaten me? Do you think some poor child is going to make me sign those papers? You have sadly mistaken you, piece of shit. I don’t bend easily to threats regardless if a little girl is involved.”

“This isn’t just a little girl.” Sharp Stepper cupped the girl’s face and forced her to look at me.

“What do you mean she’s not some girl, you bastard?”

“I’m surprised that you don’t recognize who this 14-year-old child is. Come on now, Smoke Pac. Try and refresh your memory. Do you remember a lady from Central Clown High that you used to date name, Ramona Flowers?”

“Ramona Flowers?” This name did ring a bell. My mind started searching through its 32 years of gathered data for a comparative response. Ramona Flowers… Ramona Flowers… Ramona Flowers… Yes! I remembered who this name belonged to.

Ramona Flowers was the first person to ever make my cigarette burnt out quickly when she told me that she was pregnant with my child.

“But how is this possible?” I was genuinely confused. “I thought Ramona had an abortion, so how is this child here?” I stared at Sharp Stepper and asked him, “Are you trying to trick me, you bastard? You probably scraped that brat from out of the gutter somewhere.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha.” This bastard started to laugh at me with that annoying voice of his, even some of his men started to chuckle. They really pissed me off.

Sharp Stepper continued, “So you actually believe that Ramona Flowers had an abortion. Come on now, Smoke Pac, I know you can’t be that dumb. You and I were really close friends with Ramona back then and I’m sure you know that she came from a religious background and would never assent to an abortion.”

Sharp Stepper forced the girl to stand and added, “This child is biologically yours alright. Her name is Trish Levinton. Isn’t that sweet? Even though you broke things off with Ramona Flowers she still gave the child your surname. I did a thorough investigation before I decided to execute this plan tonight. I know that a blood relative was the only way to get you to agree with signing these papers and since you are an orphan, what other choice did I have but you seek out your offspring. With all the women you’ve been with over the years I’m surprised you only have one. What’s the matter, did you have a vasectomy or something after Ramona scared you with the pregnancy? That is just like you, Smoke Pac.”

This bastard has been keeping tabs on me. I wish I was as cunning as him then I would have been able to avoid being in that tight situation. Perceiving my pensive demeanour as I overlooked the child that was supposed to be my daughter, Sharp Stepper asked me, “Do you want proof?”

“Of course! I’m not buying into this twisted fantasy of yours. If you don’t have substantial evidence you can forget about me signing shit. Zip that brat up in the body bag and toss her back in the gutter where you find her. As far as I know, she could be your damn daughter and not mine.”

“How can you say such harsh words to your dear daughter?” Laura Thotinton intervened in my conversation with her employer and forced me to say,

“Stay out of this you, intellectual slut!” After I spat at that broad’s feet I gave my focus back to Sharp Stepper who was holding onto the little girl’s face. “Well, where is your proof?”

“I have it right here.” Sharp Stepper dipped into his suit's breast pocket and withdrew a piece of document that he tossed at my feet. “Go ahead and read it. That is a legitimate DNA result with a 97% match.”

“Hmm…” I picked up the document and gave it to Demetri to analyse for me while I kept my gaze focused on Sharp Stepper. I refused to let that backstabbing bastard out of my sight even for a split second.

Giving my lips to Demetri, I asked him, “So what do you think, geezer? Is that thing legitimate?”

“I’m afraid so, Mr Levinton. Based on this documentation, the child in question to which your DNA was compared is indeed biologically yours. This document is rather thorough. They are a few doctors’ reports from when she was a baby and even a few photos of her growing up. It says here that both of you have matching birthmarks in the shape of a crescent on the left shoulder. Is that correct?”

“Hm?” This information startled me briefly. “It is true, but I need to see it.”

“Very well.” Sharp Stepper read my intent. He pulled down the little girl’s blouse so that I could have a clear view of her shoulder. I scanned it meticulously and indeed her birthmark was very similar to mine, still, I wasn’t convinced. “You could have had a specialist tattooed that there.”

“What is it going to take to convince you, Smoke Pac?” Sharp Stepper looked agitated. Good, I liked seeing him uneasy. He rubbed his silky smooth hair back and said, “I had a feeling you would be this difficult despite the convincing evidence. That is why I also brought this contingency along.”

“What contingency?” I waited to see what other unbelievable surprise this shit stain had for me. As I stood there waiting, I saw one of his men coming inside the warehouse with a brown and white poodle in his hand. I was shocked out of my mind when I recognized the dog tag.

“Baxter!” I called out to my 4 legged pet and he barked at me the way I was used to. This confirmed that it was indeed, Baxter. I gave my upsetting eyes to Sharp Stepper and yelled, “You dirty piece of shit! How did you get a hold of my dog? Did you ransack my home before coming here?”

“That is irrelevant.” Sharp Stepper took Baxter from his underling and began tracing his fingers through his furs.

What irritated me the most was when I observed Baxter responding amicably to that bastard’s stinking touch. It pissed me off! “Baxter that isn’t how I trained you to respond to strangers! You should be biting his fingers off!”

“What can I say, animals love me.” Sharp Stepper continued to stroke Baxter’s furs as if he was his pet and not mine. “I heard from a good source that you love this dog more than you do your women and apparently you have more affection for it than you do your own daughter. Seeing that expression on your face is priceless. Now I am glad that I bring Baxter along.”

“You bastard don’t say his name!” I couldn’t stand being in that ass sweat’s presence anymore. I desperately wanted to feed some bullets in his stomach but I was afraid of hitting Baxter.

Sharp Stepper held Baxter into the air and playfully treated him like an aeroplane. “I like this dog, he’s so cute. It’s shame that I will have to kill him.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” I got so upset that I eventually pulled the trigger of my gun. I put a bullet in the heart of the asshole who brought my dog into the warehouse. He died instantly with blood spilling from his mouth and collapsed onto the floor. Due to his proximity to the scared little girl, some of the dead gangster’s blood got on her face. She became so terrified that I almost felt sorry for her.

I waited for everyone inside the warehouse to react in a rash and aggressive manner, however, what I witnessed in the next moment betrayed my expectations. Everyone except the little girl was level headed and calm as if I didn’t just put a hole into one of them; even the savage lawyer, Laura Thotinton was emotionless. She kept on hinting at the document inside her briefcase, telling Sharp Stepper that she had somewhere important to be and that she wanted to get the documents signed and over with as soon as possible. I forgot that Clown City was filled with heartless bastards like these. They must have seen people getting killed regularly to be able to maintain the strict stature as they were doing.

“You killed one of my men.” Sharp Stepper glanced at the corpse as if he was looking at some dead rat in the street. “That was rather unexpected but I am curious, why didn’t you shoot me instead? Could it be that you are afraid of me?”

“Bullshit! I’m afraid of no one! How can a tough guy such as me be scared of some low life cur? That is bloody ridiculous!”

“Alright, macho man, you’ve made your point. Now I’m going to make mine.”

I’ve seen many cruel bastards in my lifetime, but none as ruthless as this suave gangster before me. He grabbed Baxter’s neck and began twisting it very slowly until a cricking sound rang out inside the warehouse. Baxter was no longer among the living. Sharp Stepper did exactly what he told me he would do, he cold-bloodedly murdered my best friend in the entire world. Baxter’s death pained my heart so much that I couldn’t restrict a few tears from streaking down the side of my cheek. These were manly tears. I know it sounds embarrassing for a grown man like me to be crying. But I hated when Sharp Stepper capitalized on this.

“What’s this, are you crying over the death of this poodle?” He tossed Baxter onto the ground like a piece of rubbish. Now his sinister side was starting to show in his appearance. “If you had signed the papers as I asked you to then we could have avoided this killing scenario but you forced my hand and this is the result. Now I’m going to ask you again, will you sign over your properties to me?”

I answered with a resounding, “No! After what you just did to Baxter I will never sign those damn papers! You might as well kill me and kiss all those properties goodbye. You won’t be getting a single acre.”

‘Bam!’

A sharp bullet suddenly rushed passed my face, tore through the edge of my cheek and penetrated Demetri’s skull. His brain matter splashed all over the floor like a crushed melon. The grotesque scenery caused my grip to loosen on the briefcase.

The bullet that hit Demetri must have been the unique exploding rounds that recently became popular in Clown City. All the major law enforcement units were trying their best to apprehend the key smuggler who was bringing these dangerous bullets into the city. That key smuggler was standing only a few feet away from me. I had heard from Madam Plastic that Sharp Stepper was the one who introduced those exploding rounds to the underground gangs of Clown City. I’m not sure if he was the person who also manufactured them but one thing was for certain, he was the main distributor.

“Look at what you’ve forced me to do, Smoke Pac. Another precious life has been taken because of your incessant procrastination to sign these documents. Now that only leaves this little one’s life.” Sharp Stepper shifted his focus to the little girl who was being held by one of his minions. He had her gaged removed and the moment he did this I began hearing how much of a piece of shit father I was.

“You dirty sack of shit! You are no father of mine! Though I don’t know you very well I can tell that you are a bad person who is going to burn in hell! Even if I wasn’t related to you by blood, how could speak about me that way? How could you say that a dog’s life is more precious than my own? I sure hope these men pump you full of lead! You deserve to die a dog’s death! You’re the reason why I’m in this situation. The least you can do is take responsibility for impregnating my mother. If I had known that I would have had a father like you then I would have strangled myself between my mother’s crotch while she was giving birth to me. You are a piece of trash man who I can’t stand to look at. Because of you, my mother has been ruthlessly murdered and I’ve been kidnapped. What next will you have these men do to me?”

“Shut up!” This mouthy brat had become so talkative that I couldn’t stand to hear her annoying voice anymore. She sounded like a damn mosquito buzzing in my ear. “Listen brat this is all an elaborate scheme to get me to sign some papers. Ramona Flowers might be your mother. I don’t give a shit whether or not she is but one thing is for certain and that is you are not my daughter biologically or otherwise.”

“You savage beast clothed in man flesh. Go back to hell where you came from! You’ve ruined my entire life. As much as I hate to admit it, you are my biological father. My mother had your pictures framed inside our house. She warned me about you when I was curious about knowing who you were. She told me that you weren’t a good man and now I’m witnessing your brutality first-hand! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! Eeeeeeeeeeek! Eeeeeeeeek!”

This brat started screaming hysterically. Her annoying voice was disturbing everyone present inside the warehouse. The burly man had to put the gag back in her dirty mouth to shut that talkative rascal up. Shortly after the screaming subsided, Sharp Stepper intervened.

“Sorry to disturb this family feud but I have some paper that needs signing.” Sharp Stepper gestured to his lawyer. “Laura the papers please.”

“Right away, sir.” Laura Thotinton took out a couple of papers from her briefcase along with a brand new black ink pen and came over to where I was standing and rested the document on the crate. She flipped through a few pages while showing me a few signature lines. “Take this pen and sign your full name here in all caps then sign your signature. I’m going to need you to do the same here, here, and here as well. Did you understand all that, sir?”

This goddamn professional bitch! Couldn’t she read my bad vibe? Couldn’t she tell that I was teeming with anger? Didn’t she know that there was no way in hell that I would be signing those papers? Didn’t she have enough intelligence to guess that even if Jesus Christ came down off his fancy-ass throne and offered me a first-class ticket to heaven that it wouldn’t matter at all, I wouldn’t sign those papers? Of course, she knew it all but this woman maintained her professionalism through and through, she even let me know that I wasn’t the first man who refused to sign at first only to later comply with eager strokes of her pen. In the same breath she told me this, I was thinking about taking that very same pen and shoving it where the sun hardly shine. But probably it was slippery enough to absorb the full length of the pen, therefore, I changed my mind. I wanted to shove it deep inside her eyeball!